To build a sustainable world, academics need to tear down the Ivory Tower

Avoiding societal collapse means building bridges between science and the rest of the world.

This article originally appeared in Ensia, an independent publication of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, showcasing environmental solutions in action. Read the original article here.

Until recently, Earth was so big compared with humanity’s impacts that its resources seemed limitless. But that is no longer the case. Thanks to rapid growth in both human population and per capita consumption, we are now on the edge of irrevocable damage to our planetary life support systems. If we want to avoid locking in long-lasting impacts, it is imperative that we quickly solve six intertwined problems: population growth and overconsumption, climate change, pollution, ecosystem destruction, disease spillovers and extinction.

The Challenges

Most pressing among these today is climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have produced most of the energy we need by burning fossil fuels. This has added carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at a pace 200 times faster than what was normal for Earth’s pre-industrial carbon cycle. As a result, we are now changing climate faster than people have ever experienced since our ancestors became Homo sapiens. Already the changing climate is manifesting as more frequent floods, wildfires and heat waves that kill thousands of people annually; rising sea levels that displace communities and cost hundreds of billions of dollars for coastal infrastructure building and repair; and increasingly acid oceans, which in some places are becoming so acidic that oyster and scallop fisheries are beginning to collapse.

Fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides,

pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals

and trash have contaminated even the

most remote environments of the world.

With no change in course, present emissions trajectories will likely, by mid-century, heat the planet to a level that humans and most other contemporary vertebrate species have never experienced, inhibiting food production and greatly multiplying other climate-change problems, including exacerbating global conflict and national security concerns. Indeed, if the present climate-change trajectory continues to 2100, Earth will be hotter than it has been in at least 14 million years, and large regions will be too hot to support human life outdoors.

Meanwhile, human consumption of natural resources is creating a plethora of other types of pollution as well. More than 6 million people die each year from the health effects of air pollution from burning fossil fuels. Our solid waste — increasingly plastic and electronic — has created burgeoning landfills and massive trash gyres in the middle of the oceans. Fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals and trash have contaminated even the most remote environments of the world. Whales and polar bears harbor toxins in their tissues; Arctic lakes far from any human settlements exhibit elevated nitrogen levels.

The harm we’re doing to nature is coming back to haunt us in the form of infectious disease risk as well. Increasing encroachment of humans into previously little-touched ecosystems is leading to more frequent and severe “spillovers” of disease from nonhuman to human communities. Climate change is further increasing the odds that novel diseases will crop up in humans and the plants and animals on which we depend: Many of the world’s diseases are tropical in origin, and as we build roads and destroy habitats in the tropics, we increase the probability of exposure. Reverse spillover from humans to animals is an issue as well — an increasing number of animals are afflicted with antibiotic-resistant forms of bacteria.

Finally, meeting human demand for food, housing, water and other goods and services has transformed more than half of the planet into farms, cities, roads and dams. This ecosystem transformation, along with poaching, overfishing and generally exploiting nature for short-term profit, has accelerated the extinction rate of wild animals and plants to levels not seen since the dinosaurs died out. The result has been tremendous loss of ecosystem services such as water filtration, pollination of crops, control of pests and emotional fulfillment. Should present rates of extinction continue, in as little as three human lifetimes Earth would lose three out of every four familiar species (for example, vertebrates) forever.

To feed that many more people under business-as-usual food production, distribution and wastage would require converting even more of Earth’s lands to agriculture and overfishing more of the sea. There simply isn’t enough productive land left to accomplish that, or enough of the species we like to eat left in the ocean, especially in the face of climate stresses that agriculture and aquaculture have not yet witnessed.

Maintaining present rates of consumption — let alone raising standards of living for billions of poor people today — is similarly problematic. Continuing currently accepted norms of manufacturing goods and services into the future would dramatically increase what already are dangerous levels of environmental contamination worldwide and deplete water and other critical natural resources we depend upon today.

Beyond Breakthroughs

How can science and society solve these intertwined problems and avoid environmental tipping points that would make human life infinitely more difficult?

Solutions will require scientific and technological breakthroughs — but breakthroughs will not be enough. On a global scale, obstacles include political, economic and social factors, including inequalities in economic opportunities and land tenure rights, or poor distributional infrastructure — problems science alone can’t solve. In addition to science, solutions will require effective collaboration of environmental and physical scientists with social scientists and those in the humanities.

In other words, we must recognize the interrelated facets of seemingly distinct issues. We must actively exchange information among practitioners in academics, politics, religion and business and other stakeholders to connect different pieces of the solutions puzzle that are emerging from different specialties.

In addition, people outside the scientific community must recognize and accept that the problems are serious and that solutions are at hand.

That means we within academia must link our work with stakeholders in ways that elicit significant action. This is especially important, since guiding the planet for the future will likely require some fundamental changes — not just in human economic and governance systems, but also in societal values. Engagement with religious leaders, local communities and businesses, subnational groups, and the military and security sectors of society is critically important to further these necessary conversations and impel action.

It is no longer enough to

simply do the science and

publish an academic paper.

That is a necessary first step,

but it moves only halfway

toward the goal of guiding

the planet toward a future

that is sustainable.

The good news is we are already making progress in both areas. Scientists and others are coming together to propose and pursue solutions. And three initiatives have been constructed specifically to bridge the science-society divide. The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere was founded specifically to connect scientists, humanists, activists and civil society in order to foster positive global change. The Consensus for Action provides a venue for policy-makers to quickly digest why it is essential to immediately address the issues described here; for scientists to communicate to policy-makers throughout the world the importance of dealing with these key environmental issues; and for members of the public to voice their support to policy-makers for taking action. And Mapping the Impacts of Global Change: Stories of Our Changing Environment as Told By U.S. Citizens provides rapid and locally relevant information to everyone, from the general public to political leaders, about how these threats to humanity’s life support systems play out.

In summary, it is no longer enough to simply do the science and publish an academic paper. That is a necessary first step, but it moves only halfway toward the goal of guiding the planet toward a future that is sustainable for both human civilization and the biosphere. To implement knowledge that arises from basic research, we must establish dialogues and collaborations that transcend narrow academic specialties and bridge between academia, industry, the policy community and society in general.

Now is the time to rise to these scientific and communication challenges. The trajectories of population overgrowth, climate change, ecosystem loss, extinctions, disease and environmental contamination have been rapidly accelerating over the past half-century. If not arrested within the next decade, their momentum may prevent us from stopping them short of disaster.

This article originally appeared in Ensia, an independent publication of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, showcasing environmental solutions in action. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed through the MAHB Website are those of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect an official
position of the MAHB. The MAHB aims to share a range of perspectives and welcomes the discussions that they prompt.

FiendishGOPlardass

The Southern Hemisphere -the undeveloped 3rd world – is obviously in trouble–refugees from water wars, famine and disruptions, chaos- and the Western response to this? Its mostly avoidance. While its all spilling over to the relatively wealthy developed West, we turn a blind eye to the West’s big systemic drivers: Western corporate resource piracy, Western deregulation of competition for limited resources, US funding of conflicts and so on. Depletion intensifies. Remaining resource extractions are lower grade and less productive. Its all great returns for Wall St.selling short. Beside protests, consuming less, and having 1 child per family, what can “small group animals”, as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ehrlich have discussed], do in the face of these challenges?

trilemmaman

Perhaps the most recent and important broad based scientific discovery is the realization of the interconnectedness of all things (and all issues). For these authors to propose that the “six intertwined problems” are all environmental flies in the face of reality. The evolution of weaponry and the unprecedented gap in economic inequality are each equally as urgent and great a threat…and all are interconnected by our failure to abide by the fundamental principle of “justice for all”. None of these interdependent problems can be resolved by independent nations, agencies or issues focus. People are the problem (even these authors) if they are not aware that each of these problems are linked to global injustice.

Dan Costello

Hi Paul et al:

Perhaps cognitive dissonance, which is often defined as the issue explaining a lack of movement towards rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is an incorrect analysis.

Reflecting upon this article led me to a discussion upon habitat and soil restoration concerning forest floor duff. Apparently even in the early 1800s, many coniferous duff layers in North American forests were deep enough for a horse to plunge into up to its withers. The discussion recommended a reading of The Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marrish (2011). At the same time, a 2013 article from University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers came up in reference to forest duff.

In short, the psychological issue may be an ecological anxiety disorder? This quotation seems to reiterate the message in your article. “By directly confronting what we want as scientists and citizens and acknowledging where these desires put us relative to others in the world, we can begin to sort through what to measure and what to change, what to alter and what to preserve.” (Robbins & Moore, 2013)

Who is the ‘we’ that must do this? I suggest that it is all
of us who are aware of the issue − members of MAHB, academics, scientists, progressive
think tanks, ordinary people, business leaders and members of NGOs. There are
millions of NGOs who work in one fashion or another of global warming,
environmental sustainability and social well-being. We are the natural people
to communicate about systemic change.

With this in mind a growing network of us are organising a Great
Transition Communication Blitz (www.GreatTransitionCommunicationBlitz.net). You
can be part of it.

The Communication Blitz will be throughout March next year.
We will inspire as many as possible of the millions of groups in this space to
communicate through their networks to friends, business colleagues and the
wider public about why we must transition to a life-sustaining society at
emergency speed, and how we might accomplish it.

I hope that you will work with us on this. What you do will
be up to you. But we have a unified communication strategy, imaginative tactics
and ready to use communication tools to make communicating as easy as possible.
All of this is on the Great Transition Communication Blitz website. Roles you
can play, with support materials, are
there as well.

Our network is expanding. We have colleagues in North
America, Great Britain, South Africa and across Australia.

Recently Interface, a transnational carpet tile
manufacturing company, has enthusiastically come on board. Interface is famous
for its commitment to becoming ecologically sustainable. Recognising that no
company can be sustainable if our whole society goes down, they have been
considering what they might do beyond of their company gates. Participating in
the Great Transition Communication Blitz fits in perfectly with that line of
enquiry. They have connections with other companies, such as Patagonia, that have
an overt interest in environmental sustainability. Through these kinds of
connections our network of engagement will spread. We have a bit more than four
months to make the Great Transition Communication Blitz massive.

Please work with us on this. You will do it through your own
initiative; you don’t have to join an organisation.

The simplest thing you could do would be to critically
review our approach, and if it makes sense to you tweak and send the sample
email to your networks that you will find in the Great Transition communication
Blitz materials.

If you are moved to do more, an important role is to
communicate with leaders of all sorts to engage them and their organisations in
the Communication Blitz. Again, support materials are available on the website.